Help Meet, not Help Mate

By Diane M. Hoffmann

Again, just the other day, I heard another preacher refer to his wife as his “help mate”. And again, I yelled at the radio and said, “There is no such word in the Bible!”

When people use that expression, you know it is from a church-going person because the term is picked up from the scripture in the Bible, “and the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18).

The problem with this is that these people “think” that the Word of God says that wives are “help mates”. As I say in my book “24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today”, the word “help meet” does not say anything close to that at all.

First, this term is used in God bringing the animals to the man…

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18).

Then God formed the animals out of the ground, brought them to Adam and gave him the task of naming them. But, then the Scripture says: “But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:20)

Now how can these verses of Scripture be confused with the woman being a help mate in marriage? Animals are not help mates.

Then in the next verses we read about the woman that God formed from the rib of the man. No more mention of “help meet”.  Then God brings the woman to Adam. Totally astonished , he says, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

And in the next verse we first hear of the institution of marriage. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

So what does the words “help meet” mean?  I show many scriptures in the book “24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today” to answer this question.

I find it amazing that no preacher has ever (that I know of) explained this to the church. And we keep on hearing that the woman is a “help mate” or a “helper”, to the man (husband) in marriage. /dmh

Blessings,

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Diane M. Hoffmann, B.Th., M.Th., Ph.D./Th.
Author of "24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today"
Just released by Xulon Press, a div. of Salem Media.
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